So Many Planes! The Good, Bad and Ugly of Cities That Punch Above Their Weight in Air Travel

Рет қаралды 99,147

Жыл бұрын

This week's video explores the good, the bad, and the ugly of air travel. Now, it's easy to Google the busiest airports in the United States, but what about the pound-for-pound champions? In other words, which US airports carry the most passengers, per capita, in and out of the city?
It's a question that takes us down some interesting rabbit holes. How are airport runways configured? Where are airports located? If there are two or more in a metro area, what differentiates them -- ability to handle intercontinental flights, lower overhead for low-cost carriers, location within the metro area? And a big question: given the land use, pollution, and noise issues on the one hand and sheer convenience on the other, is it better to have an airport close to the city or far away?
Our journey will take us to some of the nations biggest transfer hubs (Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson, Denver International, Charlotte Douglas) and the biggest airline destinations (Hawaii, Las Vegas, Orlando). Which generates more enplanements per capita, hub activity or raw tourism?
I hope you enjoy this week's exploration!
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Twitter: @nerd4cities
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Resources:
- www.faa.gov/airports/planning...
- www.theguardian.com/environme...
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
- www.nerdwallet.com/article/tr...
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_La...
- airlinemaps.tumblr.com/tagged...
- www.flysfo.com/about/construc...
- news.delta.com/route-map-us-c...
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlot...
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline...
- www.fox35orlando.com/news/uni...
- metroplanorlando.org/wp-conte...
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver_...
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Images
- Husky Stadium By University of Washington - www.gohuskies.com/ViewArticle...., CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
- Atlanta Airport (thumbnail) By formulanone from Huntsville, United States - Atlanta Airport Aerial Angle, CC BY-SA 2.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
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Music:
CityNerd background: Caipirinha in Hawaii by Carmen María and Edu Espinal (KZfaq music library)
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Inquiries: nerd4cities@gmail.com

Пікірлер: 845

@eamonnca1 Жыл бұрын

I did a presentation for one of my MBA classes making the case for moving San Jose airport. It's in the middle of a built-up urban area with traffic bottlenecks at either end because so many people have to divert around it. I investigated the tax revenue per unit area for different types of land use and found that SJC was contributing a pitiful amount, only churches contribute less than an airport. Revenue / acre for a traditional downtown block is about $1.2 million / acre, for a shopping mall it's $0.3 million / acre, for SJC it's $0.1 million / acre, and $0 for a church. I did a quick calculation and found the land value currently occupied by the airport to be worth at least $15 billion if it were to be developed for commercial and residential use. You'd have a giant clean slate onto which you could put a sustainable street grid with plenty of mass transit and bike infrastructure baked in from the start. Put it into a city-owned urban wealth fund and the city could have its heart's desires for all time with the money it'd make. 55% of people don't fly at all. 25% make 1-2 flights / year. 9.1 % make 3 - 4 flights a year. 10% of people take more than 5 flights a year. Having an airport that's easily accessible by being in the middle of town is a benefit to a vanishingly small number of people. Meanwhile the rest of us have to make big detours to get around this thing every damn day. It's like storing your Christmas decorations in front of the fridge and having to move them every time you need to get some milk. Moving SJC out of town would also eliminate the FAA's height limits on downtown buildings currently in the flight path. So you'd be releasing a lot of land for development that's not just on the site of the airport itself. Plus if you moved it down towards Morgan Hill, you could build the passenger terminal right on top of the Caltrain line and put a station right there, and for the road you could just throw in a new intersection on US 101.

@CityNerd Жыл бұрын

A comment so good I have to pin it

@cameronfinley2002 Жыл бұрын

I'm reading this on a bus going through SJC right now. Shout out to the #60. 👍

@michaeloreilly657 Жыл бұрын

Does the land occupied by the airport include parking in your calculations?

@eamonnca1 Жыл бұрын

@@michaeloreilly657 yes. There’s also some land at the south end of the runways that’s been rendered unusable by the flight path, there’s still the remnants of an old street grid there. I don’t think I included that in the calculations

@alltheagents Жыл бұрын

I'm sold! I think we'd have to keep a runway or two for all the billionaires private jets in the immediate area. They're going to veto it if they have to go all the way to Morgan Hill to fly.

@AtlasNovack Жыл бұрын

How about cities that can go from unwalkable to walkable with the least amount of fixes?

@krmendozaa Жыл бұрын

Ooooh I love this, this would be fun to explore

@incredulouschordate Жыл бұрын

My metric for that would be to measure how much area of the city is above a certain density threshhold, then divide by walkscore. This would mean that highly dense cities with a terrible walk-score would top the list. These are cities that could be fixed by adding in walking and transit infrastructure, without having to alter the foundational design of the city.

@gabe.6273 Жыл бұрын

YES YES YES

@davidbarts6144 Жыл бұрын

@@incredulouschordate LA comes to mind as a likely winner. Surprisingly dense, yet given that density, surprisingly auto-oriented. And I would bet a few other major California cities would rank high as well.

@AtlasNovack Жыл бұрын

@@davidbarts6144 I may have some self interest in LA since I'm from here 😅

@1955DodgersBrooklyn Жыл бұрын

I live in Berlin. There used to be two airports in the city, in dense neighborhoods. One closed in 2008 and the other in 2020. The new airport is located outside of the city, and the difference in quality of life is immense. There is zero reason to have loud, polluting, massive airports taking up prime urban land. Not to mention you can build highways and rail lines there without disrupting neighborhoods. The train from the central station gets to the airport in 30 minutes, and it’ll be 20 in a few years when the Dresdner Bahn is rebuilt. By the way, the airport that closed in 2008, Tempelhof, was basically left as is as a massive park in the middle of Berlin, runways intact and everything. It’s so, so popular now. In addition to being a park, they use it for a grand prix, music festivals, carnivals, etc. It’s also used as a home for refugees from Syria and Ukraine. It’s such an asset for the city.

@willcwhite Жыл бұрын

People should listen to the podcast "How to Fuck up an Airport" about BER

@winterwatson6811 Жыл бұрын

as someone who has lived very near two different major american interstate highways, i’d say highways disrupt neighborhoods. while the noise was bad, the worst part was the impact on road traffic. my last apartment was in a dense urban core, and exceptionally few of my neighbors drove. still, our neighborhood was almost exclusively four lane roads, chocked at most hours of the day by angry drivers trying to get to and from the highway. i currently live in the takeoff/landing path of an international airport and i cannot begin to tell you how much more pleasant it is to be around than a highway.

@Pystro Жыл бұрын

Well, the ideal place for an airport would be on a high speed rail line. (i.e. between two reasonably large cities). Obviously you'd need the train station to be part of the terminal building, and not in some small town from which you have to take a shuttle bus. This makes me think of the "Y-Trasse" between Hamburg, Hannover and Bremen, as well as the High speed rail connections in Texas (Dallas, Houston, San Antonio) which are (in some plans) also forming a "Y". Connections like that (though with smaller distances) would be ideal for locating an airport at the merger of the high speed rail lines. Well, I'm saying that the Texas HSR Y would not be suitable for an airport at Temple, but that would actually be a pretty good location to serve Waco, Austin, Georgetown, and College Station. Admittedly those four cities are currently probably served by the 3 termini of the HSR network, but any flight that affects a city of several hundred thousand instead of a multi-million metro area would be a win. Waco would just have to accept that additionally to getting 4 cities worth of flights, they would also have their HSR station located out of town in their airport. Too bad that improving the lives of the many won't be popular with the few.

@CityNerd Жыл бұрын

Can't wait to visit!

@nlpnt Жыл бұрын

Cold War history being something else I nerd out about, I think THF would've closed down by the '60s if West Berlin hadn't been basically an island with such limited options to expand airport capacity to. Likewise, I wonder if the original Schoenefeld Airport on BER's footprint would've been built as far out as it was if it weren't for the Soviet and DDR authorities putting it outside the city limits and beyond the four-power agreements.

@milprepper Жыл бұрын

You missed GUM (Guam International)! It had 1.85 million commercial enplanements in the CY2019 data you cited, and with a population of ~168k, that works out to a bit over 11 enplanements per capita. That should put it about tied with Las Vegas. As United's Western Pacific hub and a large tourist destination, its position makes sense.

@heinuchung8680 Жыл бұрын

FBI is watching Guam ;)

@lovesmusic91 Жыл бұрын

I always feel that for the average traveler since they only visit their local airport a few times, the greater distance from downtown matters less. However there are thousands of people who work at the airport who travel there daily, so maybe there is an advantage to enable those workers an easier commute with better transit options. A downtown rail link is good for passengers, but most airport workers don't live downtown.

@sniperer72 Жыл бұрын

I agree. I think Incheon airport (that serves Seoul) is more ideal than having the airport within city limits. 50 minutes by train

@alex2143 Жыл бұрын

I kinda disagree. Airports don't just serve people that come from that city, but also people who are coming over to that city. If you don't have decent public transit connecting the airport to other destinations, people will have to rent cars or get taxis to get around. Over here in the Netherlands, we have Schiphol, which has a major train hub right underneath the terminal building. The train hub is not just used as a destination, but is also very useful for transferring between trains. It's super useful to have a massive train hub that not only serves people who are departing from Schiphol airport, but also serves tourists and business travelers arriving at Schiphol, AND people who are just using the train station to hop on another train, AND people who are working at the airport (which is also a fairly sizable amount of people in its own right). So that's about 4 different kinds of people that you're serving all at once. Edit: though I do agree that the only reason that works so well is because of the great national rail coverage that the Netherlands has. If you build a train hub that doesn't really go anywhere, it doesn't really work that well. Bottom line, build more trains. Edit2: Apologies, I misunderstood. I thought you were talking about travel time rather than distance. I should learn to read.

@jasonreed7522 Жыл бұрын

I think the ideal case is to have the airport relatively far from the city but provide a proper transit connection and maybe a small cluster of housing and hotels near it to accommodate workers at these facilities without adding the the already deafening noise polution of cities. (Granted most of that noise polution is cars, but planes are loud and very polluting too)

@airops423 Жыл бұрын

@@alex2143 I would add that another reason this sort of train hub at the airport only works at Schiphol is because of how ridiculously close to the city center the airport is.

@sihollett Жыл бұрын

@@airops423 Schiphol is the airport for Rotterdam, Den Haag, Utretcht, etc too. It works as a train hub precisely because it's not that close to Amsterdam's centre and rail hub opportunities there, but sits near the (empty) centre of the region instead. The airport can serve all its hinterland, not just the city its named as being for, and it also can function as a major rail interchange for those who don't need a plane. Further from the naming city, but London Gatwick's problems as a train hub are more to do with rail service in the area that isn't going between London and the Coast not being good, rather than it's distance from London. At Gatwick I can change to travel Brighton-Reading, Eastbourne-Southampton, etc - it's a hub for rail (albeit one that can be better), not just an airport station.

@EastWindCommunity1973 Жыл бұрын

As an amateur spreadsheet nerd, I would find a short "here is how I pull in and analyze data" type video interesting. Perhaps a particular topic will lend itself to this. A bit off theme, but throwing it out there.

@CityNerd Жыл бұрын

Haha, I could! Seems niche, but really, what isn't

@fwizzybee42 Жыл бұрын

@@CityNerd I predict a high likelihood that there is a strong overlap between your existing audience and spreadsheet nerds

@ChristianSinclair Жыл бұрын

I second this.

@alcubierrevj Жыл бұрын

@@CityNerd Think of it as training the next CityNerd

@shouptech Жыл бұрын

I'm honestly a big fan of Denver's airport being far out there. I don't go to the airport very frequently, so I don't really mind that it can take a while to get there. Really happy that we finally got a commuter train out to the airport 20 years after it first opened.

@legatus_newt Жыл бұрын

It is far away but the train makes it kind of nice to get to. I can go to Union Station right downtown and go to the airport without worrying about Taxi prices (uber / lyft ) or parking prices. So although it's about a 45->1hr train ride, it saves me significant money. $10 each way to the airport as opposed to $15 a day parking or close to $100 for a rideshare. Also Central Park neighborhood is meh, it has some decent urbanism within it but it is very obviously disconnected from the rest of the city on purpose. Extreme amounts of smug, fitting for a neighborhood that used to be named for a former high ranking member of the Colorado KKK ( Mayor Ben Stapleton )

@gentrelane Жыл бұрын

I used the train when I went. It was easy and cool

@tb5124 Жыл бұрын

Try doing that commute five days a week. Don’t think they thought much about the ppl who keep the place running when they decided to build out in the middle of nowhere. 12 miles to the closest neighborhood (that consists of largely single family homes/pricey condos) is ridiculous.

@legatus_newt Жыл бұрын

@@tb5124 That's a fair point. It is definitely a huge miss that the majority of the "developments" out by the airport are single family home only and have very little in terms of amenities or commercial outside of a few big chain stores. If Green Valley Ranch was built more like an urban neighborhood right next to the A line it could provide lots of housing of Airport employees with a convenient way to get downtown without a car. I'm just at least happy the train exists and the A line is one of the better run transit lines. I've lived here for 7 years and have never parked my car at the long term lots which is a win in my opinion. They did just approve widening Pena Blvd though which is probably the biggest waste of money the State has ever decided on. Traffic to the airport is never that bad and the train could run twice as often for a fraction of the price. That money would be better spent on multiple parking garages near the A line stations and repurposing the surface parking at like Central Park Station or 40th and Colorado for housing.

@cjapplebaum6423 Жыл бұрын

Maybe a video about which US national parks are most accessible via public transit? Thinking about stuff like Glacier national park's Amtrak stops, or the Chicago Metra line that goes out to Indiana Dunes.

@theojaquenoud419 Жыл бұрын

I love this idea, could also look at public transit within national parks like Zion has

@NiminaeOld Жыл бұрын

That would be really cool! As a Utahn I can honestly say we need better support for these. Most people just take Uber.

@same.7939 Жыл бұрын

Good suggestion!

@letitiajeavons6333 Жыл бұрын

I know that Philadelphia has a National Wildlife Refuge only 2 blocks from a bus stop. It's the country's first urban wildlife refuge and just turned 50. It's called John Heinz NWR and it's Delaware River marshes, so all the ducks you can name, plus at least one new or rare species per visit. Excellent bird watching with Bald Eagles, Ospreys, and Great Blue Herons. Also in the diverse neighborhood of Eastwick.

@skinnyshoes11halfAA Жыл бұрын

Re: Orlando - the reason there is no light rail to the tourist is “exclusivity”. The mouse wants no stops between MCO and his kingdom. There was talk of Brightline extending to Disney but that was squashed. An added factor was the local toll road agency concerned about lost revenue to rail completion (so much for being green). The fatal flaw of SunRail is that they didn’t start at MCO and branch outwards.

@danbert8 Жыл бұрын

Yeah, tourism industry in Orlando is not interested in making transfer access to destinations easy. They love the extra fees to get those tourists to the Mouse and Hogwarts.

@enjoystraveling Ай бұрын

But I didn’t mind taking the two dollar local bus from Orlando airport to international Drive where I can get to the theme parks or other things I wanted to get to the free trolley on international Drive.

@enjoystraveling Ай бұрын

A local city bus is a little bit hidden in Orlando airport. You have to go to terminal a and go to the ground floor where the taxis are and then walk all the way to the end to find the local city bus, I think there’s at least four different ones depending what part of Orlando you want to go to and it’s very cheap, if you have more than one or two people, it’s probably better to get there a different way

@Aaron-pz9tr Жыл бұрын

I'd love a video about some small cities (around 400k-800k metro) that have the same types of urban amenities that you would find in much larger cities. I feel cities like Savannah and Portland, ME would definitely be highlighted on a list like that. Not sure exactly how you could use data to support a list like that, but I'm sure you'd find a way.

@CityNerd Жыл бұрын

I like this one

@massiminitrains Жыл бұрын

I like this idea. I would love to live in a smaller city, but the conveniences of living in a mil+ metro area are too good to pass up.

@heinuchung8680 Жыл бұрын

@@CityNerd you just like this because it will get tons of views lol like your suv money grab lol

@peskypigeonx Жыл бұрын

@@heinuchung8680 Ok bait

@stewlittle13 Жыл бұрын

Grand Raoids, MI would probably be one of the greatest examples of this

@tiedough7481 Жыл бұрын

My absolute favorite airports are the ones in urban areas. The large runways paving over useful land developments. While the noise from the jets seeps through everyone.

@simondunham9998 Жыл бұрын

Especially all the ones built right on the water 👌

@tiedough7481 Жыл бұрын

@@simondunham9998 I love Boston Logan International Airport. The people of Winthrop don’t deserve to sleep.

@gars129 Жыл бұрын

San Diego

@scpatl4now Жыл бұрын

My favorite airport to watch videos from is Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong before it was closed. I can't imagine being on a plane where you are banking left and right trying to avoid skyscrapers before you land. I doesn't get any more urban that that (thankfully)

@zandercruz3487 Жыл бұрын

Yeah, how dare they build an airpoint in the middle of a then rural area without thinking about the feelings of someone that will be born 30 years later that will have a real problem with it being by where his house was built after it opened.

@JoshColletta Жыл бұрын

Fun fact about Miami: it's been a major aviation center since the dawn of powered flight. Miami City Hall is literally the former Pan Am seaplane terminal on Dinner Key. Glenn Curtiss moved to the area in the 1920's and established what is now MIA's primary reliever airport (Opa-Locka Executive) as a club airfield in 1925. In 1928, he donated land for Miami Municipal Airport on the property where Miami Dade College's North Campus is now located (and you can still see remnants of the runways from an aerial view of that campus). After his death in 1930, Curtiss' estate donated a parcel north of the existing Opa-Locka field to the city, which then leased it to the Navy for use as NAS Miami. Activity at that field picked up significantly with training for pilots during World War II. As they grew, those two airfields, along with the blimp base to the west, merged into what is now Opa-Locka Executive Airport. With the postwar uptick in passenger air traffic and the dawning of the jet age, Miami officials knew that Miami Municipal could no longer handle that traffic (especially given its layout of two sets of multiple runways separated by busy railroad tracks), so they bought Pan Am's ever-expanding 36th Street Airport -- which is now Miami International. Of course, with Miami famously being founded as a railroad town when Julia Tuttle convinced Henry Flagler to bring the Florida East Coast Railroad south from West Palm Beach, it's ironic that it took almost 30 years to build a Metrorail line out to the airport. Gotta love Miami politics.

@williamcosgrove3552 Жыл бұрын

It's not directly related but it's crazy to me that there is no metro rail to Miami Beach. It's the biggest tourist destination in the region. They didn't even have a ferry until recently. If I can recall the 1980's was the first time they got rail at all? It looks like brightline has done ok so far so hopefully more is in store for SoFlo.

@JoshColletta Жыл бұрын

@@williamcosgrove3552 That's also been significantly lacking, yes, but there's actually one perfectly understandable reason for it: back in the early 80's, when the system was being planned (it opened in 1984), Miami Beach was not the place it is now. Most people today are surprised to learn that South Beach used to be a total dump. There was a long period there, from the 60's through the late 80's, when it was all run-down housing for the elderly and poor. It took a significant grassroots revitalization campaign to restore it to anywhere near its former glory, and it's FAR exceeded even that now. So while the early 80's would have been the ideal time to do it, there was no reason to. Maybe a link to the convention center, but that would mean tracking alongside the Venetian Causeway, and good luck getting the island communities to go along with that. Nowadays, South Beach IS an attraction, but the question of where to put the station -- and who gets eminent domained to make it happen -- is still a controversial one. I, too, hope to see Brightline and the others grow and succeed. It's never going to be "high-speed rail" as it was originally advertised, simply due to the at-grade crossings, but it's a significant improvement to the nothing that was there before it. Just the fact that they've built a station at Aventura -- a part of the area that has lacked anything other than buses for literally its entire existence -- is massively helpful.

@bagenstb Жыл бұрын

I'm not surprised Hawaiian cities would do well on a list like this due to the tourism factor and the geographical constraints of islands. Honolulu and Maui are only 100 miles apart (which is about the distance between NY and Philly,) yet there are 38 commercial flights between the two airports today! I can't imagine 38 flights between NYC and PHL in a day or even a week.

@jasonlescalleet5611 Жыл бұрын

Makes sense. You can take a train from New York to Philly (or ride a bus, or drive). None of those options work to get from one island to another. You need a boat or a plane. This makes me curious about whether or not these numbers include general aviation, and if not, what effect including it would have. Particularly on places in Alaska where a small plane is the typical way to get around, because there are no roads. That’s still not a lot of flying, but it’s a lot of flying per capita, since the capita rate is so low.

@jasonriddell Жыл бұрын

@@jasonlescalleet5611 if "enplanement" includes private plane trips / self pilot I would expect Alaska to be higher on the list if NOT an outlier off the top

@lzh4950 7 күн бұрын

@@jasonlescalleet5611 Also why routes like SIN-CGK & HKG-TPE & KHH are busy

@rothjoseph Жыл бұрын

Denver at #2 isn't surprising. As a Coloradan, on one hand, I love that airport since it has so many direct flights, but it's also miserable to transit to whether by train, bus, or car from my place since it's in the middle of nowhere. Even TSA pre-check there can be a miserable experience.

@CityNerd Жыл бұрын

Yeah it's a huge amenity and kind of a pain too

@tebryenton Жыл бұрын

Agreed. And part of why Denver places so high is that it's "cheating" to only include the Denver metro when in reality Coloradans use that airport from as far away as Vail, Pueblo, Boulder, Fort Collins, and Fort Morgan.

@davedoe6445 Жыл бұрын

Yeah I drive an hour and a half to use Denver and always wish I could use a closer airport. It is weird to me how airplanes have the potential to be so flexibly employed but for various reasons the only airports most people use are extremely large and slow and inconvenient.

@BenjaminCommet Жыл бұрын

It would be interesting to see which transit systems have done the best job in their post-pandemic recoveries

@lifeinhd4053 Жыл бұрын

New York, New York, and probably New York.

@loganb.1984 Жыл бұрын

You should include cargo. You would get cities like Cincinnati, Louisville and especially Anchorage and Memphis.

@CityNerd Жыл бұрын

Yeah, the cargo aspect is interesting. By the way Anchorage actually was the #11 city on this list.

@loganb.1984 Жыл бұрын

@@CityNerd do you have the full list for us.

@RobertPrestley Жыл бұрын

I lived in Louisville for a summer, near the airport off the UL campus, and it was really something seeing (and hearing) the constant buzz of those UPS flights every night.

@amped96 Жыл бұрын

Yes, especially considering the noise pollution caused by these as many of the flights are in the middle of the night. I think Memphis might make a second #1 appearance on this channel if cargo is included 😂.

@autumnfox4870 Жыл бұрын

@@amped96 I don't know about Memphis as #1 for per capita with cargo included, as the Anchorage metro is only 400,000 and it is the primary air cargo hubs between Asia and the US. Looking even at cargo tonnage from wikipedia the Memphis airport does approximately 4.6m tons and Anchorage does 3.1m tons despite the Anchorage metro being 1/3rd to 1/4th the population (and being the #11 airport for passenger volume per capita anyway).

@lsuowen Жыл бұрын

Orlando resident here. There have definitely been a lot more talks of creating light rail or BRT infrastructure between the airport and the tourist destinations on International Drive. Currently I-Drive has pretty substantial bus traffic along the whole route between Universal Studios and the Convention Center, so in my opinion it would be pretty straightforward to link them up to an airport connector. As for Disney, traditionally they have been the biggest opposition to public transport projects near their property. Ease of movement to and from the parks was viewed as a negative because it meant tourists could easily leave and spend their money elsewhere, which they wanted to disincentivize. Fortunately, this mindset seems to be changing. Better late than never I suppose.

@briansieve Жыл бұрын

Brite Line planned to stop at Disney on the way to Tampa, but Disney Money Grubbing "management" got butthurt that the convention center / Universal is being included, so Disney refused them a stop now.

@NiminaeOld Жыл бұрын

Wasn't there talks of sending the Disney monorail to the airport or something?

@enjoystraveling Ай бұрын

I got from Orander airport with the city bus from only about two dollars to international Drive !!!

@enjoystraveling Ай бұрын

Orlando airport

@danielbatmanj349 Жыл бұрын

6:21 BWI is over 70% southwest flights

@bowtieweddings Жыл бұрын

I have an idea for a future video. I live in Dallas-Fort Worth and would love a video about the DART/TRE and the attempts to connect such a spread out system through public transit. Specifically Arlington, TX, which is the largest city in the US with no public transportation. Even though they have a university, major stadiums, and huge amusement parks, they always seem to vote down the idea of public transit. I think this would make for a really interesting video!

@harrisonmurphy5727 Жыл бұрын

as someone from Dallas, THIS RIGHT HERE

@havek23 Жыл бұрын

Ugh and that DART runs up Hwy75 where everyone doesn't want to be and all growth since the 90s has been more north and central than that... further perpetuating that DART light rail takes you from "where you don't live" to "where you don't want to be". My friends and I did a DART bar crawl this spring and between the qtr-half mile walks from stations to areas to drink and then back-tracking or walking to the next station where you'd wait 10-25min for the next train, it was impossible to stay drunk. And if you can't use public transit while drunk, why does it exist? That didn't stop homeless people from urinating and smoking joints on the train though, delightful.

@theojaquenoud419 Жыл бұрын

There are definitely some interesting case studies with Dallas. I'd love an analysis of how the building of Klyde Warren Park has helped reunite the city that was previously so sharply cut in half by the highway. There used to be a clear downtown and uptown to Dallas but now the area just north of Klyde Warren and the areas around Victory Park and Harwood have seen such crazy growth. It would be really interesting to dig deeper into how that highway cap promoted the city's growth.

@andrewshepherd-keys2578 Жыл бұрын

Would love to see more content on this. Also for the Fort Worth side, texrail opened a few years ago and plans to expand, but several cities have no/ against transit.

@suuwooski6416 Жыл бұрын

Arlington is so backwards. I think you need huge parking for everything over 25000k sqft or some like that

@DevonFarmer Жыл бұрын

The "Hawaii of Korea", Jeju, is even more astounding than Maui. I calculated emplanements per capita of over 45. Population of around 670k vs over 31m at Jeju International. And they considering building a second airport since Jeju International is over capacity. Highest in the world..?

@breensprout Жыл бұрын

jeju is so interesting. i was last there in 2016 but i remember when we got to our hotel they were running a news segment about how almost the entire airport parking lot is dedicated to car rental services now, because there is so much tourism and you basically have to rent a car to get around on jeju, unlike pretty much anywhere else in south korea (fond memories of flooring it in our tiny kia ray to get up those volcanic mountain inclines).

@lzh4950 7 күн бұрын

There're also ferry services to Jeju from Seoul; maybe that could be expanded to include from Japan too (currently ferries from Japan go to Busan instead)

@ethan60645 Жыл бұрын

I live under one of o’hares main flight paths but I’m far enough away from the airport that the noise isn’t unbearable, but it’s definitely annoying having jets above your head every 2-3 minutes at night

@lightdark00 Жыл бұрын

That's also where I grew up. Surprisingly they started to avoid the area mostly, and instead made others suffer. It was always better than living under an elevated train line.

@danielcarroll3358 Жыл бұрын

I grew up (a long time ago) living on the top of a hill in Oakland, California. The windows would rattle from four engine prop planes climbing to get over the even higher hills behind us. When jets arrived so did peace. They are so far up that one has to strain to hear anything.

@PatrickWallsisawesome Жыл бұрын

I'm right by the lake, but a buddy lives closer to the airport in Albany Park, and the noise is noticeable even there. Also, I find it funny that Congressman Quigley devoted an entire page on his website to the issue. quigley.house.gov/issues/ohare-noise

@davidneman6527 Жыл бұрын

I'm not sure where the O'Hare flight paths go, but it seems that the noise is negligible in upscale suburbs like Park Ridge and Des Plaines, but quite noticeable in grittier places like Schiller Park.

@shsd4130 Жыл бұрын

This might be my favorite video from you yet! I'd love to see this also analyzed with aircraft movements as the numerator. Take-offs affect local noise pollution a lot more than enplanements. This would push Memphis and Louisville way up the list.

@CityNerd Жыл бұрын

I'll store this for future reference!

@lionvillelion Жыл бұрын

Anchorage.

@marsgal42 Жыл бұрын

When you count aircraft movements general aviation airports like Van Nuys and Deer Valley move up the list. Not many passengers, but zillions of little planes buzzing around.

@Hevlikn Жыл бұрын

Followup idea, seeing as you might have the data already: Enplanements per airport area. This could give an urbanist take on the efficiency of space utilisation vs alternate modes (for example, rail or freeway trips/area)

@spybloom Жыл бұрын

On a completely off-the-cuff guess, I'd say Chicago Midway would take that, unless there's some super busy single runway somewhere

@Hevlikn Жыл бұрын

@@spybloom put some more thought into it, and think it might end up with the same hawaiian airports at/near the top - islands have space at a premium, but highly trafficked. The continental airports would be more interesting, because space is relatively cheap

@CityNerd Жыл бұрын

@@Hevlikn Yeah, Kahului, Lihue, Kailua-Kona for sure

@andrewdiamond2697 Жыл бұрын

Of the busy airports, Denver would be the biggest for land size - it's massive beyond comprehension. Yet, I'd imagine there are some small city airports that use massive amounts of land that have commercial flights but serve a low count of passengers (Huntsville, AL; Knoxville, TN come to mind)

@shsd4130 Жыл бұрын

@@spybloom I just looked at my local airport (San Diego) since it's a super busy single runway. Seems to beat Midway at 19k enplanements/acre vs. 13k. But SAN is an anomaly in several ways.

@rosskgilmour Жыл бұрын

Being a hub is pretty nice... depending on where your airport is located. In the northern hemisphere, the trade winds generally blow from west to east. An airport like Hartsfield-Jackson is ideally located on the souther end of Atlanta to minimize noise pollution while maximizing connection. A poorly placed hub airport is Heathrow in London. Located west of the city centre planes tend to land flying directly over the city on final approach and they take off right over Windsor Castle west of London maximizing noise and air pollution.

@BabyBang17datruth Жыл бұрын

ATL is also accessible with three major interstates.

@wwsciffsww3748 Жыл бұрын

@@BabyBang17datruth And a heavy rail link within the airport that gets you downtown in less than 20 min

@bagenstb Жыл бұрын

Speaking of ATL being the busiest airport in the world, I've connected through there 104 times (yes, I keep exact track) and it's amazing how efficient that airport is for origination/destination passengers (MARTA red line at the domestic terminal's front door) and connecting passengers (seven parallel concourses and a train that goes down the middle of them). Every time I connect through Heathrow or Frankfurt I have to ask myself why those airports that serve fewer passengers than ATL are so dang complicated to go through.

@wwsciffsww3748 Жыл бұрын

To me, it doesn't feel like a super huge airport because it is easy to get around.

@danieldaniels7571 Жыл бұрын

I've been stranded there a few times due to missing flights, but I think this is largely due to my girlfriend living on CPT

@ulysseslee9541 Жыл бұрын

coz it is the advantage of using mid-field linear concourse design and connect them with underground people mover system.

@quiet451 Жыл бұрын

Living in downtown Denver, it is annoying to have to commute an hour by train to the airport. Especially considering that there are still plenty of planes flying overhead every day.

@oxpack Жыл бұрын

I once left downtown denver 30 minutes before departure time at stapleton and made the flight. That was pre 9/11. The new train to dia is so pathetically slow. If the movers and shakers took it ever it would get fixed - but they dont.

@michaelgeisert289 Жыл бұрын

Great vid!! Love your delivery! Keep up the zingers to keep us on our toes🤣🤣

@AISPs Жыл бұрын

7:11 It's interesting the space wasting stroads somehow provides smooth tracks for rail transit. In fact, many asian city transit networks follows the wide road grid, and even a portion of Chinese HSR tracks is elevated above road on the west of Hefei Nan(South) Station

@freyak5401 Жыл бұрын

It's cool to see the background of how much work goes into these videos. Really enjoyed this one. A cool idea I've had for a video would be cities/metro areas with the best future potential for transit/bike infrastructure

@linuxman7777 Жыл бұрын

When we in Pittsburgh lost our hub status in 2004 there were losses economically, and our airport is now overbuilt, but on the bright side, It became cheaper to fly to many destinations, as Pittsburgh airport no longer was able to charge as big of fees. Although now if you want to go somewhere, you will have to go to DC, NYC, Chicago, Toronto, Charlotte , Atlanta or Detroit first, but it isn't so bad

@mattb1293 Жыл бұрын

Interesting; had not realized PIT used to be a hub for USAir; just read up on it on wikipedia. Have traveled to there a few times visiting family and did have the impression that it was overbuilt.

@starventure Жыл бұрын

Pittsburgh is the city that had an asshole of a mayor telling travelers to fly out of Cleveland instead because USAir was too expensive while he was responsible for some of the highest landing fees in the country there.

@amped96 Жыл бұрын

Interesting that it became cheaper after losing the hub. Memphis lost its NorthWest hub and now flying from Memphis is much more expensive.

@davidneman6527 Жыл бұрын

@@amped96 Cincinnati lost its hub status at the same time as Memphis. During the hub years, Delta had 80% of the departures out of Cincinnati, and kept discount carriers out of the airport. As a result, fares to and from CVG were by far the highest in the country. Cincinnati travelers (even business travelers) got very familiar with flying out of Dayton, Louisville or Columbus, and it was common to drive to Dayton, fly back to Cincinnati, and connect to your destination. Today, a few discount airlines serve Cincinnati and the airfares are now in the middle of the pack. The older terminal buildings and the enormous commuter terminal have all been demolished, and the airport doesn't seem overbuilt. Unfortunately, parking and ground transportation have also been cut back and are now insufficient because the local passengers have returned.

@sethpolevoi4027 Жыл бұрын

The SLC airport doesn't take up much valuable space as the majority of the population grows out north to south instead of east and west. The airport area is mostly warehouse. However we have a huge housing shortage and rents have double in the past few years

@NiminaeOld Жыл бұрын

Not to mention the airport is in a smelly swamp so people don't really want to live there. The carbon output is frustrating though, because it probably contributes to the inversion.

@kevin9794 Жыл бұрын

I've thought about the close vs far debacle since it's been big topic for conversation in Mexico due the new Felipe Ángeles International Airport, which replaced the cancelled Mexico City Texcoco Airport, and I think I agree with what seems to be a common opinion in the comments: as someone who travels a lot it's nice to have airports near the city, but generally speaking, it's probably better for the city when they're far away. From a fairness perspective the land near the city that could be an airport is instead something more people can enjoy, such as housing (which benefits the city as a whole by keeping higher supply), commerce, or in the case of Mexico City a huge park that should also help with water management. Moreover, if a having an airport far away makes HSR more attractive, all the better.

@jasonreed7522 Жыл бұрын

I definitely think that if a city is big enough to justify a large airport then its also big enough to justify a transit network to connect the airport to the main city. And from the perspective of the city its better to keep the airport farther out and reserve valuable core land for better land uses than a grassy field filled with runways.

@AssBlasster Жыл бұрын

San Diego's urban airport feels like a dead zone for the city to avoid at all times unless you need it. I totally agree to keep the airport far away like 30-40 minute drive. Orlando was a good example.

@evan9072 Жыл бұрын

What's your take on the canceled airport to the east of Ecatepec in terms of this topic?

@kevin9794 Жыл бұрын

@@evan9072 at first I had my reservations because I thought of this in terms of the numbers. Cancelling the contracts costed money, travel to the airport would take longer, and the capacity of the airport itself would be smaller (even when you consider that the new airport is far enough that the old one can still operate. The cancelled airport would've necessitated the closure of the airport it was replacing). Nowadays though I've come to think the cancelled airport would've been cool and something to be proud of, but the project that's replacing it will be even better as a whole. The area and land around it designated a protected natural area and a huge park is being built in there- the space is the size of 36 Central Parks, or about twice the size of the whole of Manhattan. Had this land just been left abandoned I don't think I'd think very highly of this cancellation, but this new project is very exciting. A good chunk of this area are lakebed remains of what used to be the huge Texcoco lake system. Human ingenuity and a good budget would've been able to build an airport there and keep it operating in spite of the challenges of building in a dried lakebed prone to deforming and flooding, but letting the land do what it naturally wants to seems right to do. And as someone who grows ever more fond of rail more I learn about transportation, I'm happy the far-away airpot has motivated the expansion of one of the the commuter rail lines to reach it.

@evan9072 Жыл бұрын

@@kevin9794 Thanks for your response! I am a frequent visitor to CDMX and also a planner passionate about rail and I was also very happy to hear about the AIFA Tren Suburbano extension. That extension along with others seems like it would be great for Edomex. CDMX is a continental leader for transit and I'm so excited to see projects like the Metro extensions and Toluca rail come to fruition there.

@BillKing3456 Жыл бұрын

Just discovered your channel and have been binging thru your whole catalog. Great stuff and your editing is amazing. I studied transportation planning in grad school, well sort of. My professors at Harvard (I'm not name-dropping, it's just where I went) kept preaching that there wasn't a strong connection between transportation and land use (maybe there used to be, they argued, but not any more) and so, disillusioned (probably for the better), I branched out into other fields of planning (but have kept getting pulled back into mass transit which I love). I've got all kinds of topics I could suggest but u already come with great ones (including aqueducts - yes!) and I love your spot-on commentary. If you want to debunk my former (contrarian, I think) Harvard professors, please have at it. Oh, and I've filmed every train station in New Jersey on my channel (a really nice system, NJ Transit) and I've discovered there's been a ton of new (and ongoing) TOD near many of the stations - I wasn't expecting New Jersey to be so progressive, at least in that regard. Cheers.

@zekecaldon5056 Жыл бұрын

I have loved watching this channel grow into the transit nerd powerhouse it has become. Keep up the good work!

@TexasToast221 Жыл бұрын

The only thing I can’t stand about traveling is getting rides to and from the airport and the pickup/dropoff areas in general. I’m spoiled by DCA’s metro access and will be even more spoiled when WMATA eventually finishes the silver line extension to IAD.

@Kirbywonder2468 Жыл бұрын

i love oakland airport as a native from the bay area! its much smaller and generally less busy and cleaner. i tend to take southwest when i fly so having oakland be two terminals (southwest and everything else) its really nice to be able to relax and ride bart there. sfo is much more chaotic and takes longer

@danieldaniels7571 Жыл бұрын

Living in Phoenix with family in Sonoma and Marin counties, Oakland has always been my airport of choice to go there. Way easier than flying in or out of San Francisco.

@monkreeder Жыл бұрын

A few words about Salt Lake City… There are two things you need to realize about Salt Lake City. 1. The vast majority of the population, roughly 2 1/2 million people, live along a 70 mile stretch on the front of the Wasatch Mountains. That means that the Salt Lake airport is pretty much smack dab in the middle of the entire population. this is an airport highly utilized by a local population that is highly educated, and whose job market involves a lot of tech industry, and business, meaning there is a lot of business travel as well. 2. Utah is a sport and travel destination throughout the year, due to national parks, and a multitude of natural wonders. But beyond that, the ski season brings millions of people to Utah every winter. There is a reason why the 2002 Olympics were among the most successful financial ventures of the modern Olympic era… because every venue from those Olympics is still highly utilized. so, in conclusion… Yes, it is a Delta hub, and many, many people end up at the airport simply to transfer on to further destinations. But, I dare say that many more people travel to and from Salt Lake as a primary destination than some might think.

@maxcourval2045 Жыл бұрын

I also think he only accounted for SLC metro area population, and not the entire Wasatch front, which is classified as three separate MSAs by the Census Bureau

@tylersmith4265 Жыл бұрын

I feel that both Denver and Salt Lake city are high on this list because they're relatively isolated compared to other major cities in the US. To reach basically any other major city you have to drive for days or fly, most people chose to fly.

@kellinbonilla3507 7 ай бұрын

Quite a few missions start and end at SLC as well. No idea what kind of numbers those are, but I'd imagine it contributes pretty well to the stats.

@samuellush Жыл бұрын

A corridor analysis, like the one you did for Acela and Chicago, would be really interesting for CAHSR. I think a lot of people focus on the SF-LA connection and ignore the cities in the middle, which are pretty big in their own right, plus the future extensions to Sacramento, the IE, and San Diego.

@saltwotter Жыл бұрын

Great video as always! Was fun to see the airport that I grew up near as number 5 (lived on the north shore), and the airport I currently live next to as the number 4 lol. With the airport being close to Salt Lake City, I feel like it doesn’t affect noise in the city too much, especially since the flight path and mountains make it so we’re pretty insulated from it. But the homes that ARE in the flight path directly, like in west valley city and south jordan, yeah, it’s really loud outside almost constantly. Having TRAX only be a 20-30 min ride into downtown is pretty nice though.

@lagautmd Жыл бұрын

Salt Lake's winter air traffic is large due to the skiing industry. The airport is about 1.5 hours from the resorts. I once flew out of Atlanta on an early flight non-stop to Salt Lake and got in a legitimate half-day of skiing before it got too late (mid-afternoonish).

@EllieODaire Жыл бұрын

It's also a major hub for international tourists visiting Yellowstone, with many taking busses from SLC rather than smaller planes to Bozeman or Jackson Hole. There's a truckstop in McCammon Idaho that had to put up secondary foreign language signs for the bathrooms because it is a popular fuel & rest stop for the busses filled with tourists from east Asia.

@ironpig701 Жыл бұрын

You nailed it. OGG(Maui) is insane. I have flown from LAX, ATL, Orlando, Denver and Utah and nothing compares to OGG. Two weeks ago it was 2 hours from dropping luggage at counter to sitting at terminal gate. Airport is really small so only like 4 TSA lines.

@RWernsing Жыл бұрын

Always great 👍

@davidgarey9028 Жыл бұрын

Great to hear you talk about Orlando! There have in fact been rumors (on and off) that the Brightline will extend to connect to the theme parks either at the convention center or Disney Springs or both, then continue to Tampa

@Connor_Herman Жыл бұрын

I'm not terribly surprised to see Denver at #2. Great point at 10:55, it certainly feels like it's an airport that's meant less for us residents of Denver than just a conveniently located transcontinental hub. My "fun" fact is that DEN is the farthest airport from the city it serves in the US unless you count Washington Dulles. I'm a pilot so I can respect that having the airport farther east of the mountains helps with turbulence on departure & approach. Longer runway lengths were also necessary for the extremely high density altitude days we get here - often 10,000 feet or more in the summer. It's about the same distance from the CBD as Stockholm Arlanda is. They have high speed rail that gets you to or from the airport in 17 minutes. With the speed and frequency of the A Line in Denver (especially off hours), along with high percentage of cancellations due to driver shortages, it can take longer to get downtown than your flight lasted. I'm of the opinion that, if you want to build your airport outrageously far from the city center, you need to be willing to invest in high speed rail to support that connection.

@zeroone8800 Жыл бұрын

Technically, isn't the airport in the city, as they carefully extended the borders to include the airport? I think you mean the farthest from the central business district.

@Connor_Herman Жыл бұрын

@@zeroone8800 Yeah they annexed the land from Adams County in 1989, and the City and County of Denver looks ridiculous on a map because of it. I've also played devil's advocate on this point. I clarified that in my second paragraph if you read any further.

@dongshuowu3454 Жыл бұрын

Can’t wait we need you for another video

@calsavestheworld Жыл бұрын

Very good explainment. ;)

@devonreoch2491 Жыл бұрын

Love it. Yes, it's good to have a hub in your city. People from other cities are subsidizing your air travel and creating jobs. Just don't buy a house under the flight path (easier said than done).Topic Suggestion: 10 ish years ago much was made of DesertXpress or XpressWest, which would develop not only the currently under construction Vegas to LA HSR line, but envisioned spidering out to Phoenix, Denver and SLC with Vegas as a rail hub. Was that every viable or just hot air because it sounded cool? I love the idea but highly doubt cities in the 4 Corners states can support HSR beyond regional/metro uses.

@friddevonfrankenstein Жыл бұрын

Enplanement, love it xD The process of folks gettin' planed.

@ksbav8r Жыл бұрын

This is my favorite channel, per sass

@MohondasK Жыл бұрын

The airport question is similar to one I’ve been thinking lately: is a football stadium better within the urban center of a city, or further out? Other types of sports venues make sense to be centrally located, but with football stadiums only being used 10 times a year, I just don’t know.

@CityNerd Жыл бұрын

Yes, I think about that a lot too.

@Cyclone1001 Жыл бұрын

For airport location, I think it depends on the variables. For a city where you're expecting passengers to connect through and never visit the city, then you want the airport far away. But for a major destination city, having a close airport with good connections makes that travel easier. If you have either as the opposite, it really does start becoming a major inconvenience either for the people that live in the city or those trying to get to the city.

@mr51406 Жыл бұрын

Very interesting and, as always, totally impressed by your devotion to crunching numbers.🌟 2 follow-ups: 1) Bizarre tiny airports or terminals in large cities. Like Billy Bishop in Toronto. Or the minuscule terminal 3 at Charles De Gaulle. You’re arriving in a metropolis but your terminal is like Burlington, VT. 2) Far away or close in: a perfect test subject is Montreal. Mirabel-YMX was supposed to be the futuristic airport built way out in the country that could make noise 24/7 destined to eventually replace Dorval (YUL, now Pierre-Trudeau). Of course 🙄 they neglected the train access (4 agencies passing the buck…). A proverbial white elephant that became “box office poison,” its failure and closure were self-fulfilling prophecies. (But we are getting rapid transit access to YUL in 2 years, finally, hopefully…) Closer in is better for transportation, especially transit, but bad for noise pollution. I work under the YUL flight path and it’s… distracting.

@kingstonsean Жыл бұрын

It looks like the YUL airport REM extension won't be operational until 2027. :( For the benefit of non-Montrealers who might read this thread, YMX was hamstrung from the start due to politics. The airport should have been located in Vaudreuil-Soulanges and would have served both Montreal and Ottawa. There were (and still are) existing highways and rail rights-of-way. Legend has it the provincial government vetoed the idea because they were worried that airport employees would move to the province of Ontario (to avoid Quebec's low taxes). This concern was probably exaggerated.

@dandeluca Жыл бұрын

I'm kind of shocked at how much I look forward to these videos. Every Wednesday I find myself looking at the notification bell throughout the day to see if it has arrived yet.

@baseballfan99 Жыл бұрын

Having had to run through Charlotte to catch a connecting flight after a weather delay I could not believe how big it was and even before the original question I knew it would make this list.

@ravibetzig7849 Жыл бұрын

Great video! A few thoughts: 1. I was shocked to see SLC ahead of ATL. I know Delta has invested a ton in the SLC hub in recent years, most notably making it the center of their A220 operation. But I still would not have guessed that. 2. In the graph you show at 6:20, I believe your cutoff is "large hub" airports as described by the FAA. I believe that if that's the case than MDW (Chicago Midway) is far more dominated by Southwest than any airport on the list. Southwest has >90% market share at MDW as of the most recent data, although that's maybe down a tiny bit as Frontier has moved some of their operation over from ORD. 3. I wonder what large metros have the least enplanements per capita. I think it's probably places with little tourist or connecting traffic- a lot of Rust Belt/Midwest airports like MCI, CLE, PIT and STL come to mind. 4. I was pretty surprised to not see RSW on the list but I'm not sure what all is considered part of the Fort Myers metro.

@davesilver5493 Жыл бұрын

As to number 1. ATL is a very large metro 6 million plus. Atlanta has over 1000 flights per day, is convenient to the city, has rail connection, and 3 planes can takeoff or land simultaneously meaning few delays.

@soupdrinker Жыл бұрын

I had to have a stop at the SLC, and I didn't expect it to be as big and busy as it was. And not only that, they were in construction for yet another terminal, so it is in process to being even larger than it is now

@ChristianSinclair Жыл бұрын

I suspect the number would be quite high also for Southwest % of LUV field in Dallas.

@NiminaeOld Жыл бұрын

Don't forget that SLC sends out missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on a nearly daily basis. Plus Utahns LOVE to travel. I work at a travel agency and it's a really competitive market here. The mountains are nice but we get sick of the desert. Most travel goes to California.

@ashleymott8944 Жыл бұрын

Great video! I thought Denver would be number one. I used to be the GIS Manager at that airport. The City and County of Denver annexed the land for DEN from neighboring Adams county which is why it is super far from downtown. There’s a long finger of land that connects original Denver to the 53 square miles of airport land. Before light rail was built it did seem like a bad idea!

@robertmcgovern8850 Жыл бұрын

Well, there was also that sudden surge of interest in sugar beet farming amongst Mayor Wellington Webb's political cronies, just prior to the airport siting decision.😉 Pity no one thought to do a soil survey; they might have realized they'd need to scrape off 12 feet of unstable bentonite & gypsum to prevent their brand new runways from heaving & cracking. Oops.😳

@WillGallagher1 Жыл бұрын

I generally feel closer to the city is better, especially when high speed rail is not available between the terminal and downtown. Ideally it would take less than a half hour to reach downtown by public transit. Also not all cities with airports near downtown are particularly disruptive depending especially on geography. BOS is a great example as many flights go in and out over the water. DCA causes remarkably low residential disturbance compared to other urban airports despite being right across the river from downtown due in part to restrictive flight paths. SAN on the other hand is quite noisy, especially in areas adjacent to the airport like Little Italy, but it is really awesome being able to walk from the terminal to downtown along Harbor Drive in such a short time. Makes it easy for tourists, easy for people on trips for business, and makes getting on a flight a lot more accessible to the public who lives in the city. I am a BIG supporter of trains and making sure we have increased connectivity between shorter-haul destinations, but flights will continue to serve critical long distance routes and I think we need to focus on making connectivity to all transit options as efficient as possible.

@JuanWayTrips Жыл бұрын

6:21 Should note that those figures only look at the mainline passengers (i.e. those going on A320s and 737s). It doesn't seem to be counting passengers on regional flights that are operated by airlines like SkyWest but are labeled as American Eagle, Delta Connection, etc. Once you factor that in, the percentages are even higher (60-almost 90% range). Also, as someone who cares about better people-centric urban development, but also has elite status with airlines (but would love for my short flights to be replaced with HSR), I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels conflicted!

@rossplotkin3506 Жыл бұрын

Seconded. There are multiple us airports where one carrier has greater than 50% market share.

@sirbossk Жыл бұрын

Yeah no surprise on Kahului; I actually guessed it lol. I just went on a vacation to Maui last week and it was the most crowded I had ever seen an airport. When I was arriving and heading down to the baggage claim, it was literally shoulder to shoulder trying to get anywhere. And when I was heading back the TSA line was so long that it filled up the entire shaded area of the line, spilled out into some switchbacks in the unshaded area outside, and then spilled out of *those* switchbacks and went all the way down to the baggage claim/arrivals area. It was so bad that they had employees handing out cups of water to people in line because of the heat. And then you leave the airport and it's a super small, quiet metro area; within 10 minutes of driving you're already out of it entirely. It's a pretty small airport, which is fine for a small metro area like Kahului, but the amount of tourism Maui sees floods the airport with way more people than it can reasonably handle. It's the only airport I've been to that recommends arriving at the airport 3 hours early instead of the usual 2. It's hilariously undersized for the demand that it sees. It's a small town airport trying to handle tides of tourists. Oh, and for the airport distance thing, I'm wholeheartedly for keeping them away from the city center. It's similar to the freeways in urban areas thing; they just disrupt the urban area and take away valuable city land for a purpose that could be served farther away. Put them farther away and just link them up with rapid transit.

@samuelkane8146 Жыл бұрын

Shout out to Windsor locks and Bradley international. Perfect for flying out of Hartford or Springfield. Even has an Amtrak line that's only like. 4 miles away.

@timothytao898 Жыл бұрын

I'd like to see a video with your views on airports near/far from the city center and maybe airport related land uses and transit connections as well

@dauwenkust Жыл бұрын

Living in Sydney gives me an interesting perspective on Airports close to the city. Kingsford-Smith is stupidly close to the CBD, and I live under the flight path so appreciate the negatives, but aside from the obvious it's super easy to get to the airport benefits, my friends have noticed we all live essentially in the airports noise shadow. We are able to live close to the city and get all the benefits derived because the airport is here bringing down rent and land value too.

@judsonmartin9869 Жыл бұрын

Another great video. Got to say a more picturesque college football stadium would have to be Folsom Field in Boulder Colorado.

@jessicamurdzek3645 Жыл бұрын

Yes Bradley airport shout-out! My parents are in CT so that is my airport of choice when going back

@supejc Жыл бұрын

Yes, more airport content please!

@kevindavis900 Жыл бұрын

I enjoyed this video. An interesting different take would be which airports have the most non-stop service to different cities relative to population (vs. those airports that only funnel into hubs.) MCO and LAS would still make it, no doubt, but I expect you would see some different cities pop up, like RDU and maybe AUS.

@brianmonroe7164 Жыл бұрын

Ray, love all the content. only been watching for a month but I've gone through just about all your videos. There's just got to be some interesting videos you could do on smaller cities though. I love all the urbanist stuff you do, but surely there's good and bad examples of how smaller cities do this even if they don't have, say, extensive rail transit. So how about you dive into the smaller American cities (say, metros between 100,000 and 250,000 or 500,000) that do this the best. Looking forward to when your subscriber count finally gets big enough to fill the gargantuan college football stadium that's 2 miles from my house, but I think that's going to take another few months...

@stephen7938 Жыл бұрын

The orlando International Drive segment you mentioned is the new alignment for the brightline corridor to Tampa.

@jackatherton308 Жыл бұрын

I'd love a video comparing "sister" cities in the US, Canada, and Mexico (with the pairs being determined by criteria you provide). People often say that Montreal has no comparison in the US in terms of being an affordable city with great transit and world-class cultural events, but I'd be curious what the closest US city might be.

@SCIFIguy64 11 ай бұрын

Minneapolis. Cold, check. Large, check. Transit, check. Affordable, it’s actually cheaper. Cultural events, so long as day drinking is cultural then yes.

@P0w2you Жыл бұрын

I'm a giant HSR nerd and advocator but I to am occasionally enraptured by Airport runway length and configuration and angle it is super interesting! like FFA rules, and what need runway length for certain planes!

@roger1818 Жыл бұрын

Great video. Instead of enplanements, how about using the number of destinations as that gives you an idea of how many cities you can fly to with a direct flight, since connections are never fun. Up to you if you want to include multi stop destinations on the same flight or not.

@chimchuneko2018 Жыл бұрын

RE: What is the ideal airport distance, I would vote for farther away to mitigate all of the air, water, and noise pollution these venues cause. However, the exact distance would vary based on what alternative transit options are available. In the USA in areas where no true high speed rail exists or is planned, it would be better to have airports closer as there are no transportation alternatives. Even if transportation options exist, the public transportation network is so underdeveloped, many people will likely drive anyway, so decreasing the distance required to drive would likely be beneficial. Shorter distances would likely also make public transit options easier to implement. In regions with good rail, putting airports farther away could increase the competitive range for rail, especially if train stations are located in city centers. Interestingly, from the data I could find, it seems that European airports are generally farther away from city centers than in other parts of the world

@Connor_Herman Жыл бұрын

Re: airports being farther away from city centers in Europe Cities in Europe existed centuries or millennia before the invention of powered heavier-than-air flight, while American cities were often relatively young and more able to locate the airport close to the city. If you see an American airport located oddly close to an older east coast city, it's often built on at least partially reclaimed land (LGA, JFK, BOS, DCA)

@jasonreed7522 Жыл бұрын

I think the ideal case is definitely build the airport farther out and have a transit connection. (Maybe a 10-15 minute train ride is the right distance?) I also believe that any city big enough to have a major airport should be big enough to have acceptable transit. (Sadly many US cities are grossly lacking on this front)

@colinmccann5189 Жыл бұрын

Except putting airports far out of the city doesn't remove the problem of sprawl and pollution, it just moves it to the suburbs.

@realwiggles Жыл бұрын

I don't think high-speed rail has to be the only option for transport to and from an airport.

@SeanA099 Жыл бұрын

I think it’s good to be like DC, and have a small airport closer to downtown for smaller planes on domestic flights, but a much larger airport away from the city for international flights

@grantrobinson5985 Жыл бұрын

Guessed Denver prior to watching. I have even been to the Kahului airport several times, but I just didn't think of it.

@arviide7636 Жыл бұрын

It would be cool with a top ten of north american downtowns who devote the most space to on-street parking per total downtown surface area. It might be some work to figure out a good method to measure it (perhaphs defining a downtown area and dividing the total area with area for parking) but I'm sure you could figure something out! Including smaller metro areas would be interesting to, looking at Sioux falls and Bismarck for example..

@Heinlein. 11 ай бұрын

I fly 2-3 times a month, currently living in MD. Looking to relocate along east coast and using this information as factors. Appreciate it

@cordellis8935 Жыл бұрын

data daddy, we love the content. ❤️

@arjunyg4655 10 ай бұрын

The idea of airports fills my heart with unmitigated bliss. 👍

@jonathangurvey5852 Жыл бұрын

Love the video- more airport content would be great! As far as airports being close/far out go, I don't understand why travel time must necessarily correspond with distance- why not have the best of both worlds? Why can't you have an airport that's a reasonable distance from the city centre, but with fast transit options into a central hub or node on the network? In Denver, it takes about 50 minutes to get all the way out to the airport from Coors Field, in downtown. Bump the airport in a few miles and that number goes down, but you still keep the benefits of keeping the airport outside the city. DCA in Washington doesn't bother me much either, and that's a 25 minute metro commute from where I live, so maybe I'm biased.

@lizcademy4809 Жыл бұрын

Maybe there should be a requirement that every airport has a fast transit link to the closest city center.. Though that won't always be enough. I remember one trip coming home to a Boston suburb. I did not drive in urban Boston for obvious reasons. Walk from my gate to the Silver Line (hybrid bus/subway mashup", connect to the Red Line subway, out on a late night bus to a friend's house where my car was parked. The ground trip was longer than my flight. Now, I'm 2 blocks walk, one bus, and light rail to the Minneapolis airport. Much better, even though MPLS is much further from the city center than Logan.

@Connor_Herman Жыл бұрын

@@lizcademy4809 MSP is an example of an extremely well located and accessible airport. Flight paths are over the lakes and rivers and it's a quick trip to Minneapolis on the light rail. $2 gets you to anywhere served by Metro Transit. When I moved from Minneapolis to Denver, the extremely long (20 mile) train ride and $10.50 cost was so off-putting. But you pay it because the ubers are easily $50-60.

@joshvaughan3403 Жыл бұрын

Topic idea: Ginormous railroad yards/junctions. It would be like your freeway interchanges video, but with rail.

@jezzarisky Жыл бұрын

I haven't spent any time in the neighborhoods closest to the airport in SLC, but it is otherwise outside of residential and light commercial areas to notice noise. As far as size goes as well it's not nearly as big as the inland port that Utah is building around the airport that will bring in more pollution on top of the airport with all of the planes, trains, and semis it will be bringing in. As a small consolation though, we do have a Stadler manufacturing facility out there building trains for BART

@artirony410 Жыл бұрын

when the USSR was still around, there was an airport in Alaska that saw tons of use because it allowed for the quickest flight to Japan from the US. Now that you can just fly through Russian airspace, there's this huge airport that's mostly empty now

@zeroone8800 Жыл бұрын

Anchorage you're thinking of Anchorage. It's still busy with cargo flights because it's cheaper to stop. It's really the longer endurance planes that brought Anchorage down, not the fall of the Soviet Union.

@ikechicoreralation Жыл бұрын

“Fills your heart with unmitigated bliss” 😂 9:32

@ScootScoot29 Жыл бұрын

A top ten video based on cities with the most and/or "best" protected bike infrastructure (i.e no painted bike gutters). It would be interesting to see how your list contrasts with The League of American Bicyclists bronze-platinum ratings that cities frequently tout.

@bobsykes Жыл бұрын

Still waiting for a video topic of everything you like and dislike about having made Las Vegas your home, but I can definitely relate to just how awesome LAX is to cheaply get you nearly anywhere at anytime. Keep it up!

@casmatt99 Жыл бұрын

Shout-out to Bradley! Pioneer Valley Mass and Northern Connecticut represent!

@GlutenFreeVegas Жыл бұрын

Agree with you about Vegas, it's one big reason I live here. The transportation though is crazy, however I am super lucky as I live along the 109 route and it takes me 25 mins including walking to get dropped off in the airport. Probably should take less time but I used to live in the south foothills near Denver so lol the airport was soooooo far.

@yay-cat Жыл бұрын

yeah noise is a big factor. I know the acoustic modelling software that I use has some feature for this but generally if someone is planning to build a thing it’s your job to try and justify why the client is right. It depends on take off direction like it’s noisier on the take off side than the landing side (more engine work). So I think to mitigate noise a bit you can do a steeper take off so the plane gets far away sooner but that’s obviously more fuel and discomfort and more noise for very close to airport. I went to one tiny town in the uk that was in the takeoff path and every like 3 or 5 min you have to stop what you’re doing cause it’s deafening.

@adamt195 Жыл бұрын

Being an Atlanta native, I know I take direct travel to almost any city for granted, but I would very much rather have a better high speed rail network instead. I dont fly that often, and when I do its almost always shorter domestic trips. Moving soon to St. Louis, and I know the population isn't able to justify it, but geographically St. Louis is perfect for a midwestern rail hub. Having a lot of HSR lines pass through St. Louis would save a lot of time over making transfers in Chicago.

@stellarsjay1773 Жыл бұрын

First time I've ever visited your channel. I've never heard such an off-hand delivery in my life. Wow, you really don't care what you sound like do you? Bravo!

@NaturalThunder Жыл бұрын

Beautiful place natural of nature

@clayton97330 Жыл бұрын

My favorite part of the week! Snark overload incoming.

@ArlanTLDR Жыл бұрын

Nice UW callout, I work there! Random Seattle question: any thoughts on Aurora/HW99? I've seen a couple articles in the Urbanist about the potential for a streetcar, but it seems like just wishful thinking for now.

@pushslice Жыл бұрын

Higher likelihood that citynerd could do a video about prostitution-demographic-mapping on Aurora than a streetcar system being built there :-O. (I say that semi-seriously; prostitution mapping actually sounds interesting..)

@lordofduct Жыл бұрын

Wooooo Bradley!!!!! I actually find it funny that you had to figure out its metro area. Because on the flip when you fly into Bradley they'll say "Welcome to Hartford" despite being in Windsor Locks. And everyone local always mutters "we're in Windsor Locks...". But yeah, BDL serves the greater Hartford,CT/Springfield,MA area.

@alex8nasa Жыл бұрын

I am down for more airport content!

@corderoanthony2301 Жыл бұрын

I used to live in SLC, Utah. The noise pollution is not as bad as you think. The only ones affected by the noise pollution would be the suburbs south of the airport, although in between the two is a fair amount of industrial businesses - then the salt lake flats reach eastward to the north of the airport, so no neighboring suburbs are affected northerly. Due to the mountainous terrain in the are, planes are pretty restricted to flying a north-south configuration through the valley.

@jeb4198 Жыл бұрын

As someone who lives in a "fortress hub" for one of the major airlines, it's a mixed bag, but overall I think I prefer it over the alternative of being a hub for no airline and often having to connect. Prices are definitely higher, but in 2022 airline pricing is so out of whack that it's hard to determine just how much of a difference that makes. It's also a lot easier to get places, at least on that particular airline, as there's a LOT more direct options than the metro area population alone could justify, often with multiple daily frequencies. It's also easy to decide what airline to be loyal to/build points with/maybe pick up the credit card for free bags, since that airline will be the default option for a lot of travel. There's also a bit of competition since other airlines often will charge a bit less to fly on them if you're willing to do a connection, since they're competing against the direct flight.

@alext1143 Жыл бұрын

Would love to see more bicycle content on your channel. A top 10 cities in the US for bicycling would be interesting. Could use different metrics like miles of buffered bike lanes, curb protected lanes, bikeshare availability, bicycle commuting percentage, etc

@Parborway Жыл бұрын

Airports should be near downtowns. They are an ammenity that is used by the entire region, and those things belong at the most accessible part of the region. Also, transit access scales with closeness to the city center, usually. Also, given the nature of sprawl, the airport is going to inconvenience some people no matter where it is, so it might as well be in the most convenient place. Also, having a close-in airport makes plane-to-train connections a lot more practical. Also, airports are major employment centers.

@johnmininger7472 11 ай бұрын

The problem is the high air and noise pollution. It also takes a tremendous amount of valuable land while lowering property values of adjacent properties.

@kevinlovell635 Жыл бұрын

Would love to see a video of the freeways most prime for removal, since thats gotten a lot of press lately. Similar to the freeway lids video but maybe focus on underused freeways in areas with high land value or communities particularly ripped apart? The useless US40 expressway in west baltimore comes to mind